Boards

The time has come. Pharmakon's new album is streaming over on Pitchfork (http://pitchfork.com/advance/564-bestial-burden/). I've had it for the past month or so and I must say it is one of the most impressive and striking albums I've heard in a while. Auto Immune and the title track in particular just floor me.

I'm really surprised that people like Pitchfork are picking this up but am glad, I suspect that this has a lot to do with the Scared Bones connection and also that the packaging and marketing of Pharmakon is very easy to digest. To my ears it sounds like a decent noise record which is a good thing.

I would implore anyone who enjoys it to check out stuff by Prurient, Yellow Swans, Merzbow, KK Null, Masonna etc as I personally enjoy them more than Pharmakon and, in my opinion, they might give people a taste of more accomplished noise artists that have been doing it for many years and have experimented all over the place.

s'alright, but 1) sounds a *lot* like the last Wolf Eyes. 2) I like my noise to be self-erasing, rather than self-centred.

I don't want to get too sniffy; I think it's good that a woman in the noise scene is getting big exposure.

I also think the way it's about her is a good thing. don't want to talk like any liberated female expression is an act of feminism, because I feel like that in itself is a burden. in a way it is, like how personal is always political in a way, but it's also unfair and maybe patronising to be all, like, good for her, or fixing a context on it. feels especially uncomfortable as a non-female to do this.

I even hate reducing it to her gender. as a human expression of being sentient within a fallible biological vessel, regardless of gender, it's really powerful.

idk... I think it's good and antithetical to your blokes rubbing themselves on pictures of children and whatnot. in fact, the way her feelings manifest is the most compelling thing about the record.

I just listen to noise to quiet the voices of others and my own neuroses, though. I think it works - haha - as an art pop record, though.

that might seem silly, right, but it is beholden to pop structure and expression in a very distant way.

it actually builds extensively beyond its similarity to NA:LF, upon further reflection; it is undeniably post-that record, but not in a redundant way.

not sure if I'm listening to the same record...I mean I get that it's not perhaps as abrasive as merzbow or masonna but I'd say it comes from a considerably more primal place than either of those tags suggest.